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Hi VOS. I have one of my HR20 DVRs constantly rebooting since the install of the new software (0x57b). Before I attempt to call directv, do you have any advice on what to try? Thanks.

So you've got to give me a tough one. ()These haven't been made in over 4 years.Some have had power supplies go bad.

The couple of things to try:Pull the power cord for a good 10 min and see what [if anything] happens when it boots back up.

When it does boot at the "running receiver self test" screen press select to enter the diagnostic menu and run the guided test to see if there are any errors.

If none of this shows anything, "you might see" if forcing the old software does.At the first "Hello screen" press 02468 and it should change to searching for new software, and during the day, find the old Blue GUI. If it does "fix" the rebooting, it may not last because the new GUI will be pushed to you again, so this DVR may need to be replaced.

DirecTV has announced the HR34/RVU combo, and Dish has announced Hopper/Joey. The former uses DECA and the latter uses MoCA. What are the technical differences, and is one superior to the other?

DECA is MoCa, but at a different center frequency. DirecTV is using "MoCa 1.1". I don't know what Dish is using, but MoCa comes in several "flavors" now to work with various suppliers. Above 1 GHz for Cable, and another around 800 MHz, which "may be" what Dish is going to use if they keep their SAT feeds above 950 MHz. Dish doesn't have SWiM, which frees up the below 800 MHz, where DECA is [525 to 575 MHz].MoCa 2.0 uses 100 MHz [bandwidth, instead of 50] and will handle much more traffic, but I'm hearing it isn't going to be coming to DirecTV "soon", nor is it really needed right now.

I have two HR24s and a HR20 all connected to slim5 with a zinwell switch. MRV is thru cat5 to my router. What if any advantage would there be in converting to a swim system?

Going to SWiM & DECA would take the MRV traffic off your home network, and the SWiM can help the SAT signals for rainfade as it will amplify low level signals.Neither of these may be important to you, so there may not be any advantage.When I switched over, I have much less cables in my system and haven't lost signal in the rain in a long time.The newer receivers are SWiM & DECA only, so without them, you can't use a H25, or the HR34 [which still has ethernet].

"I guess" if what you have is working well now, then there isn't any advantage.It's convenient, simpler to setup and make changes/additions to, but these may not be important to you.

What you're seeing are the channels in use by other tuners.If you have every receiver on the same "SWM" screen, they've released the channel for each receiver, so there shouldn't be any zeros.Then as each receiver exits the setup menu, it will pick up the SWiM channel again and this will show as a zero on the other receivers on this page.DVRs may need to have both tuners in use before both of their channels show zero.Channel one is the guide data, so it should never be zero.

What you're seeing are the channels in use by other tuners.If you have every receiver on the same "SWM" screen, they've released the channel for each receiver, so there shouldn't be any zeros.Then as each receiver exits the setup menu, it will pick up the SWiM channel again and this will show as a zero on the other receivers on this page.DVRs may need to have both tuners in use before both of their channels show zero.Channel one is the guide data, so it should never be zero.

Thank you, sir. I have all three rcvrs on the SWM screen now and no zeros anymore! I'm checking out whether or not a couple of bedrooms that I have connected as: SWM 8-way -- [~100ft RG6] -- SWM 2-way -- [~100ft RG59] are going to work if and when I get H25's for them. The one I'm looking at now is: 100 100 100 100 100 100 98 98 98. I'm guessing that's pretty good, right? Anything else I should check out? Picture looks good on all the HD channels I've tried.

Thank you, sir. I have all three rcvrs on the SWM screen now and no zeros anymore! I'm checking out whether or not a couple of bedrooms that I have connected as: SWM 8-way -- [~100ft RG6] -- SWM 2-way -- [~100ft RG59] are going to work if and when I get H25's for them. The one I'm looking at now is: 100 100 100 100 100 100 98 98 98. I'm guessing that's pretty good, right? Anything else I should check out? Picture looks good on all the HD channels I've tried.

Those numbers look fine.As for the RG59, you will need to have a receiver connected to them [duh].When I did some testing to see how much loss there could be before there was a problem, I watched the highest channel, since being the highest frequency, will have the most loss and show this first.

Those numbers look fine.As for the RG59, you will need to have a receiver connected to them [duh].When I did some testing to see how much loss there could be before there was a problem, I watched the highest channel, since being the highest frequency, will have the most loss and show this first.

I have the H25 temporarily connected to one of them now and a terminator cap on the other. When you say highest channel, do you mean the highest channel I get? Which is 654 for me.

I have the H25 temporarily connected to one of them now and a terminator cap on the other. When you say highest channel, do you mean the highest channel I get? Which is 654 for me.

No, I meant SWM 9, since this is the frequency running through the RG59.There is another thing that causes zeros. When the SAT signal drops to zero, there isn't any signal for the SWiM to send, so the SWM channels are zero too.When you dish gets knocked [way] out of alignment, all the SWM numbers are zero.

No, I meant SWM 9, since this is the frequency running through the RG59.There is another thing that causes zeros. When the SAT signal drops to zero, there isn't any signal for the SWiM to send, so the SWM channels are zero too.When you dish gets knocked [way] out of alignment, all the SWM numbers are zero.

Ah, ok. SWM 9 appears to be a solid 98 on the RG59 connections as well as on the other 2 receivers, which are connected to RG6 runs. So, I guess I can expect these RG59 rooms to work just well as the other rooms, yes?

Ah, ok. SWM 9 appears to be a solid 98 on the RG59 connections as well as on the other 2 receivers, which are connected to RG6 runs. So, I guess I can expect these RG59 rooms to work just well as the other rooms, yes?

Without have a "real" power meter, you've done all you can and "it should be" fine.

Without have a "real" power meter, you've done all you can and "it should be" fine.

OK, that's good enough for me. One last question re: signal levels. When I look through the satellite transponder screens, they're mostly in the upper 90's or 100 with one or two here and there 0 and/or 80-something. Are those 0's and 80's a problem with my setup or are those bad transponders or something else?

OK, that's good enough for me. One last question re: signal levels. When I look through the satellite transponder screens, they're mostly in the upper 90's or 100 with one or two here and there 0 and/or 80-something. Are those 0's and 80's a problem with my setup or are those bad transponders or something else?

The mesh numbers are a bit like the SAT signal numbers, where neither are really related to power, but to the signal to noise ratio.
When you lose enough signal, to lose the SNR, then the numbers drop fast.
Those 290s I think are a software error, as the Phy Mesh maxes at about 260.

VOS (or others) - I posted this in another thread but I thought someone here may wanna weigh in:

So I got a new DirecTV install. I've got an HR34 in the living room and two H25-100s in bedrooms. It's connected via DECA/Cinema Connect kit. I keep having this rather infuriating problem where one or both of the H25s randomly will be unable to play content from the HR34. Generally when it does this I can hit "try again" 2-12 times and it will finally work. I really NEED this equipment to start working reliably as I was the dude that insisted on this change (from 9 years of TiVo) and my Wife and daughter are not at all impressed with the HR34 (with the SD blue UI) as compared to the HDUI on our "old" TiVo Premiere XL.

Anyway so far I have found that the following WILL make it work again but this is a stupid thing to have to keep doing continuously:

Any one of those will restore the ability to play stuff on the HR34 from an H25.

So far I have ran the system and network tests both from the menu and from the front panel....and everything looks normal and fine. Both H25s have the beautiful new HD GUI now and the problem was present before and after the update. I REALLY thought I'd fixed this problem earlier today when I went through and configured STATIC IPs for all three boxes. It was very snappy and reliable for a while but a few minutes ago I tried to play something and got the error again! I hit RETRY 5 times and then it started working fine.

I haven't called DTV yet. I was saving that as a last resort. Any ideas? Help me out guys -I'm not the most popular guy in the house at this point.

So I got a new DirecTV install. I've got an HR34 in the living room and two H25-100s in bedrooms. It's connected via DECA/Cinema Connect kit. I keep having this rather infuriating problem where one or both of the H25s randomly will be unable to play content from the HR34. Generally when it does this I can hit "try again" 2-12 times and it will finally work.

I haven't called DTV yet. I was saving that as a last resort. Any ideas?

Right now there are a few of these threads going on.My first thought was to check the networking status, but users like RAD, who have had a HR34 [which I have yet to get], have posted this is a software problem and network status can be fine.This isn't the answer you wanted to hear, but even the HR20s were real flaky when they first came out and it took close to six months before the software was stable.I don't expect it will be six months before you see a software update, but I do respect Rad's experience.